Quintessence
by Althea SaDiablo
Summary: Ryuuki, an art student, is having his first gallery opening, and Shuurei agrees to come as his date. Or at least, so it seems. "Truth is beauty, and beauty truth" . . . what, then, is beautiful art?


Author's Note: Yet another of my random AUs! This one is set in a world much like our own, but not quite . . . or perhaps it _is_ our own world, who can say? But yes, the random, it is huge. I doubt there will be any more of this particular world, although the concept amuses me still. This story makes me wish I were a better artist-- I can see each and every piece of artwork described here perfectly in my mind, but I would never ever be able to reproduce them.

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There was a back room off the main gallery, the doorway partially concealed behind a bulky, abstract sculpture. Shuurei slipped through hoping for some peace and quiet, a refuge from the chattering crowd who thronged the gallery opening. The room proved to be blessedly empty, an oasis of quiet and shadow with only the works that hung on the walls illuminated. She took the opportunity as a gift and sat on the padded bench in the center to remove her heels, deeply thankful for the relief of being able to set her stocking feet down flat.

It was only then, massaging the impression of the straps out of her skin, that she actually looked at the artwork.

She recognized Ryuuki's distinctive touch immediately, and likewise his casual disregard for speciality. The works were not many, but the mediums were—here stained glass, there an ink painting, over in the corner a contraption of chicken wire and tin foil with copper sheeting shot through it all like lightning. There was no discernable theme—no, there was, she realized, because each piece depicted a different animal . . . or rather, a different creature. Poised elegantly on a pillar she found a flocked statue of a panther, winged with abstract spangles of indigo. A rough oil painting in a corner was of a minotaur, dark and shaggy and grizzled with silver. A kirin with a mane of turquoise and irritation in every dancing line was wound about with inky lines of falling calligraphy characters.

She paused for a long time by a mixed-media watercolor of grey, tossing storm clouds, desolate but strangely compelling for the faint brightness of a departing shape hidden among them. But then her eye was drawn to another island of light, further along the wall—not a large work, but done in the glowing smoothness of acrylics. On the canvas a golden dragon watched her, framed in a stone arch over a reflecting pool. Rain ran along the textured scales and golden mane, and the water was rippled with the many concentric rings of falling drops. But it was the eyes that drew her, and the loneliness in them—along with the feeling that at any moment the dragon would step from the garden to stand beside her—

"Shuurei? What are you doing in here?"

Ryuuki's voice made her jump, the spell of the silent artworks suddenly broken. She turned to find him blinking in owlish confusion at her from the entranceway, looking somehow out-of-place to her eye in his suit and tie. Already fine strands were coming loose from the high ponytail he'd attempted to confine his hair into, and her fingers twitched in mild irritation at the inevitable urge to tuck them back again.

"I just wanted a break, is all," she said, and flushed when she realized that her forgotten shoes were lying abandoned on the floor. She quickly sat down to put them back on, and he came to stand next to her.

"I was looking for you," he said, "I didn't expect to find you back here."

"Why not?" she asked, practically and rhetorically. "Is this a private room or something?"

"Well, no, but . . . um. I . . . um." She glanced up at him and he avoided her eyes, looking instead at the paintings on the walls. "So. What do you think?"

"I think this stuff is better than the works in the main gallery," she said. "You really ought to mark the entrance more clearly so that people will see it."

"The people who are supposed to see it will see it," he said obliquely.

She snorted. "_I_ very nearly didn't find it. But anyway, we should go back—this is your first big opening, and you should be out hob-knobbing."

He nodded and headed for the door to the main gallery, and she moved to follow, but paused a moment for another look at the dragon painting that had caught her eye. Something about it seemed deeply familiar to her, though she knew she had never seen it before. Dragging her gaze from the dragon's, she noticed for the first time that it had a small, unobtrusive label tacked to the wall beside it.

_Self Portrait_, it said.

"Shuurei?" Ryuuki had paused at the door, waiting for her.

"Coming," she said quickly, hurrying to catch up with him. She pretended not to notice when he took her hand as they walked together back into the main part of the gallery.

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Author's Final Note: So, can anyone figure out who's depicted in the rest of Ryuuki's portraits?


End file.
